Friday, August 10, 2007

Notre Dame. It almost looks like a cartoon with the sky behind it like that.

The final
adventure of my travels this summer was that my flight out of Damascus
was delayed leaving,
so I missed my connecting flight in Paris. As a result, I got an
overnight
in Paris, gratis. I took a train into Paris from Charles De Gaulle
Airport and then
walked from Notre Dame, through some of downtown, along the Seine (past
the Pont Neuf Bridge) to
the Louvre. Continuing through the Tuileries Garden toward Place de la Concorde,
I stopped to ride a three story swing. I'm saving the six story
ferris wheel for next
time! It just seemed like it would be more fun with a companion. Then I
proceeded to the Pont Alexandre III Bridge where I looked at Les Invalides in
the distance, and fell under the charm of a sea nymph sculpture. I
enjoyed the amazing mosaic work on the front of the Grand Palais before
going up
the Champs Élysées to the Arc de Triumph and from there to the Eiffel
Tower.

I didn't know what half of what I saw actually was until I looked it up later. I'm sure I've left a lot of places out of this post, like a famous Metro station, and other palaces that I could see in the distance as I walked past. I didn't
stop moving except for the swing and a snack at the Eiffel Tower. Ironically, French fries were all the vendor had left when I got there. No crepes, no waffles, no macaroons. Finally, I got on
a train back to my hotel.

Charming "little" Sea Nymph (probably twice the size of an adult).

The whole time I walked through Paris, I just kept taking pictures and hoping I had
enough daylight left to get to the Eiffel Tower before dark (I had discovered in Syria, that my flash didn't work!). I took 148 pictures in Paris. Luckily, it was July first - very near midsummer - so I had as much daylight as possible. I actually got to the Eiffel Tower just as the sun was going down. I have shots of the Eiffel Tower that look like daylight, more that are in twilight, and more attempted in full dark; all taken within a twenty-five minute span.

I fully expected my
feet to be bloody stumps when I got back to my hotel: without my checked luggage, I wasn't equipped with
walking shoes. But, I was fine. According to maps, I probably only walked about eight or nine kilometers plus a little more added for meandering, and walking
around things to get a better angle with my camera, or just see better. Your eyes physically can't take Arc de Triumph in all at once from close up! I also
didn't have a purse or a coat, so I kept my purchases to what fit in my hoodie
pockets. I froze half to death when the hotel shuttle took 45 minutes to arrive
at the unheated train station.

I think I did
the walk in exactly the right order. Kudos to the French for having
street signs that matched the free map on the bus tour brochure I used to
navigate. It was a much better experience overall than getting lost in
Vienna 9 years before without a single road sign matching my map! Of course that
could have been because I wasn't in the area covered by the map. But that's
another story.

The Louvre: Can yo see the Ferris Wheel in the distance?

Although Notre Dame was impressive, the Louvre was
more so. You really can't imagine how large the Louvre is until you've
been there. You could spend a week just walking through it, I'm sure.
In the back courtyard of the Louvre, I paused to listen to an opera singer who
was busking. That mezzo-soprano was better than anyone I've ever heard. I recommend entering the Louvre from the back courtyard on your first visit. Everyone has seen the front. You get a much better sense of scale when you walk through the rear courtyard before emerging behind the glass pyramid. It's a special perspective that you shouldn't miss.

Swing in the Tuileries Garden. Okay, maybe three stories was an exaggeration.

Once I got to
the Tuileries Gardens, across the street from the Louvre, I could actually see the Arc de
Triumph in the distance, looking Mammoth from two kilometers away! Once I got to the
Arc, it didn't seem quite so huge, until I saw these itsy bitsy things on
the top and thought at first there were some statuettes on top of it. No: they were full sized
people who looked like ants from the ground. It really is colossal!
I didn't spend the 23 Euros to go up, since I didn't
have time to stop. The Eiffel Tower was still a ten minute walk away.

Arc de Triumph. Those itsy bitsy dots at the top are people!

After so much grandeur - no wonder the French can be arrogant about the
beauty of Paris - I didn't expect the Eiffel Tower to be very impressive.
I arrived there just as the sun was setting. From across the
river, it looked just as you'd expect from postcards. But once you get to it and walk underneath it... I
don't think I've ever seen anything so beautiful, industrial, and large all at once. The rolls royce merlin
propeller at Chatsworth, runs it a close second in the industrial beauty category. But, this is HUGE!!! The open ironwork makes it look delicate and beautiful while the form and size give it amazing presence. It's
funny; but it didn't occur to me to feel small, it only made me wonder at how
beautiful industry could be if only it tried. The Eiffel Tower may be a hundred years
old; but it still feels like something out of a Sci-Fi movie. For me, it was like the first
time I saw the USS Enterprise on big screen! I half expected to be taken up
into the "mother ship!"

Eiffel Tower, duh!

C'est trop
bon! Now, I completely understand why people come back from Paris with all
sorts of little Eiffel Tower souvenirs. I wanted to get all sorts of
things, but managed to keep it down to the basic two key chains and a
magnet. Someday: bookends or a lamp or... It's
hard not to want something; to hold onto that moment of experience: a trigger
for a grand memory. The experience of the Eiffel Tower alone is up there with Zion National Park, on the must
see short list.

I left the
hotel at almost 4 PM and headed back to it about 11:30 PM; so it was more than 7
hours; but I don't think the train counts as it was decidedly ordinary unless you've never taken a bus or train through suburban Europe.

If you have a layover in a foreign, or even domestic location, don't hesitate to grab all the experience you can in the short time you have. You won't regret the adventure.

I've had
quite the vacation already. It will be years before I do anything half so
impressive, I'm sure. I think I actually might be ready to do some
studying and ordinary living by September.

About Me

I was born in Oregon but I spent most of my childhood in Damascus, Syria (my father's hometown). I went to Mills College and fell in love with the Bay Area, but returned to Oregon and worked at Eugene Public Library for 9 years before heading to film school in British Columbia. After I graduated from Simon Fraser University, I visited Syria. But I left before all the fuss started. I'm currently writing "Damascus Chronicles," a memoir of my childhood in Syria. I've also written a short film "How's Your Life?" [Keep, Hiyatek?] that is in pre-production, and I continue working on my documentary, "El Hijab," about Syrian women and the choice to wear or not to wear the Muslim head-scarf.